Customer Reviews
"Thy lady hath forgotten to be kind..." - By: Morena, 13 May 2008 
The King's Grey Mare is a lovely, bewitching read even if you haven't read about the Wars of the Roses before; it's not as politics-focused as many other books dealing with this period.
The author says she wanted to portray Elizabeth neither as villain or victim. I think she succeedsin making Elizabeth a rounded character, although some of the actions ascribed to herin this novel are pretty awful. I was initially put off by the talk of "evil witches" on the back cover; the old witchery rumours are a bit of a cliche when it comes to La Woodville. Luckily, Rosemary Hawley Jarman is a better, more sensitive writer than whoever wrote the blurb for her book!
The first part of the book follows Elizabeth Woodville as a young girl, a lady-in-waiting at the court of Henry VI & Marguerite d'Anjou & a blissful young bride. Then she is sent home a widow, where her mother Jacquetta sets her sights on a new son-in-law, the new young Yorkist King. The young Elizabeth could be fiery when she had to be, but she often didn't have to be. But with grief closing over her & the obsession of revenge upon the Earl of Warwick, she becomes proud & ruthless. As Elizabeth becomes less & less sympathetic, we see more of Grace, Edward IV's illegitimate daughter, who is a kind of foil to Elizabeth. Grace is to fallin love with John of Gloucester, illegitimate son of Richard III, forming a touching sub-plot, but she can't help herself from loving Elizabeth.
What I loved most about this book was the author's style of writing. Her vocabulary is huge & she has a real eye for detail, as well as a knack for a pretty phrase. I've heard her style described as "flowery", & it's certainly not the more modern, Philippa Gregory style of historical fiction. So, I guess it's not to everyone's taste. Her best known work is her first novel, We Speak No Treason, & although I found the writing there beautiful, the multiple-narrator structure dragged quite a bit & the dialogue seemed overly melodramatic. However, I was very pleasantly surprised with The King's Grey Mare. Perhaps experience had tightened up her abilities, or perhaps the classic novel type suits her better.
My favourite parts werein the earlier part of the book; Edward IV barrelling through the forest on a hunt, the legend of Melusine, the bliss of Bradgate, the court of the young & lovely Queen Marguerite. Places where the author's imagination has free rein. Perhaps predictably, the better documented parts of history, the machinations of politics, fall a little flat compared to the more magical parts of the novel. However, the final part of the book, which is set post-Bosworth where Henry Tudor is king, is gripping. It's unusual for a novel setin this period to spend much time, if any, after the fall of the Plantagenets. But if you've ever wondered exactly what happened to Elizabeth under Tudor rule, this book offers to fillin the gaps. Of course, there are some things we will never know the truth about, but Rosemary Hawley Jarman's explanation makes for an arresting conclusion.
